Hosea 11:1 in Matthew
2:15
Hosea 11:1 expresses
God’s disappointment at Israel’s failure to live up to his exodus intentions
for them, not least in the light of his warnings concerning the mortal dangers
of idolatry (1:2; 4:1-3; cf. Ex 23:24, 32-33; Dt 4:1-4). Consequently, in a
restatement of his self-revelation on Sinai, he will no longer let the guilty
go unpunished (Ex 33:19). Refusing to show compassion, they will no longer be
his people, and will no longer be their God (Hos 1:6, 9). But given God’s unchanging
character, the prophet knows that this punishment is only temporary and the
time will come when under YHWH’s patient persuasion his people will experience a
new exodus (2:14-15; cf. 11:10-11). Matthew is not here suggesting that Hosea
had some hidden additional meaning to “son” only now revealed in Christ. He is
declaring that Hosea’s hope of God’s accomplishing his initial purposes in
Israel’s is now eschatologically fulfilled in Jesus, his truly obedient Son
(cf. Mt 3:17-4:17), whom he also brought up from Egypt, and through and in whom
he will patiently persuade his people (cf. Mt 11:25-30).
. . . .
“The Following Rock”
in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4
Although this text is
often regarded as an a-contextual “midrashic” or allegorical reading of Israel’s
exodus experience, these assessments in my view fail to attend closely enough
to the original text and its context and hence miss the deep symbolism already
inherent in the original account. The brevity of Paul’s rapid-fire
identifications suggests that he sees nothing controversial about any of them.
And in any case his main point is to draw out of the implications of god’s
unchanging character for the Corinthians in this new exodus with whose
relevance and pattern he apparently expects them to be familiar (cf. 1 Cor
5:7). That he easily asserts their shared ancestry (10:1a) reflects his
fundamentally historical mode of thought and further strengthens the
supposition that this was hardly a new way of thinking for them.
If the fiery-cloudy pillar
was already associated with God’s promised delivering presence (Gn 15:12-17),
then Paul’s identification of that cloud with God’s presence among the
Corinthians through his Spirit is surely no great step (cf. Is 63:9-10).
Similarly Paul’s description of the exodus as a baptism into Moses merely picks
up on what it already was: a passing through the waters of death (cf. Ex 14:30),
the dwelling place of the sundered chaos serpent (Ps 89:10; Is 51:9; cf. Jb
26:12; Is 30:7), under the aegis of God’s “cloudy-fiery” presence, into a new
creational life (note the several parallels with Gn 1: darkness, light, wind,
the deep, and the emerging dry land) according to the terms of the Mosaic Torah
(Dt 4, 30; Lev 18:5; Ps 119). The Corinthians’ baptism into Christ (1 Cor 1:13)
is the eschatological new exodus equivalent of passing from death to life (cf.
Rom 6:4) to which the prophets themselves pointed. Both groups also ate of the
food and drank of the drink God provided (hence “spiritual”). According to
John, Jesus had already described himself as the true bread from heaven (cf. Jn
6:31-58), and according to Moses . . . and YHWH had already identified with the
smitten rock—itself the source of Israel’s drink—which, given Paul’s high
Christology, finds its obvious eschatological counterpart in the crucified yet
resurrected Jesus (see also Jn 7:37-38; 19:34).
For Paul, these
apparently noncontentious parallels rests on the fundamental assumption of YHWH’s
constant character—as he had acted in the past so he would act again—which leads
as Paul had intended all along to his warning to the Corinthians not to
participate in idol festivals. If their ancestors, for all their participation
in God’s presence, salvation, and provision under Moses, were liable to
judgment for idolatry, then the same surely applied to their Corinthians
descendants who were enjoying divine benefits in Christ.
. . .
Leviticus 18:5 and
Deuteronomy 9:4 and 30:12-14 in Romans 10:4-10
In one of his more
compressed passages, Paul here outlines, based on God’s consistent ways, the
character of the new exodus salvation in Christ over against the righteousness
of Torah. In citing Lv 18:5 Paul begins by affirming that Israel had indeed experienced
Torah’s gift of life, based as it was on Torah righteousness with its demand
for obedient “doing” of its statutes and ordinances. Even so the subsequent “do
not say in your heart” (v. 6a; Dt 9:4) recalls Moses’ later reminder to an
Israel on the threshold of the promised land that it was not their own
righteousness that earned them entrance, enjoining them therefore to love God by
keeping Torah (Dt 10:12-13), In evoking Dt 30:12-14 (vv. 6b-8_ Paul then skips
forward to Moses’ prophetic word to an Israel in future exile, reminding them
that God had made Torah both accessible and clear. The problem was not with
Torah but with them, as Paul had earlier affirmed (Rom 7:7-20). With classic rabbinic
brevity, Paul lays out the character and history of Israel under Torah, from
its opening promise of life (Lv 18:5), through a warning not to think they
earned it (de 9:4), and finally to the sad reality of failure and exile, due
not to God’s good gift but Israel’s sin (Dt 30:12-14).
At the same time,
Paul’s interjection of “But the righteousness that comes by faith” (v. 6a)
begins, midstream as it were, to overlay the narrative of Torah with the
parallel eschatological narrative of God’s promised saving response in Christ.
As with Torah righteousness, Christ-faith righteousness also warns against “saying
in one’s heart”—he too is an underserved gift to failed Israel—but the focus
quickly moves to a christological equivalent of Dt 30:12-14. Just as God had earlier
brought Torah near and clear to his people, now that same God has done even
more in his surpassing fit of an equally and more accessible and clear Christ
to his now exiled people.
In the light of this
eschatological gift, whereas Moses summoned postexilic Israel to Torah
fidelity, Paul knowing on the basis of his Damascus Road experience that God’s
eschatological answer is not Torah but Christ (Rom 7:24b-8:2), transfers the language
of that climactic summary of Dt 30:11-14 to Jesus (vv. 6b-8). The resurrected,
Sprit-gifting Christ is after all the telos of the Law and, as the one
who truly inaugured that realise from exile of which Moses’ spoke, the climax
of Israel’s history. Henceforth, to attempt to find life through Torah righteousness
amounts in the face of what God has now done, to a disobedient establishing of
one’s own justification (v. 3). It becomes the kind of “saying in one’s heart”
that one ought not to do. What God requires is no longer the Mosaic command “to
do” Torah, but the speaking of a faith-filled confession of Christ (vv. 9-10).
Once again the basic premise, given that for Paul Christ has supplanted Torah
as the path to righteousness, is the consistency of God’s actions and our
expected response. Being given life (Lev 18:5), irrespective of our own efforts
(Dt 9:4), we should seek to be obedient to what God has clearly revealed, what
means no longer “doing Torah” but confessing Christ (Dt 30:4-10). (Rikk E.
Watts, “How Do You Read? God’s Faithful Character as the Primary Lens for the
New Testament Use of Israel’s Scriptures,” in Daniel M. Gurtner and Benjamin L.
Gladd, eds., From Creation to New Creation: Biblical Theology and Exegesis [Peabody,
Mass.: Hendrickson Publishing, 2013], 199-220, here, pp. 209-11, 213-14)
